My bad...I should read posts slower. I thought you were asking for the difference between a CNA a NURSING ASSISTANT. I don't know exactly what a Medical Assistant does but I know they don't provide bedside care the way a CNA does. Medical Assistants are usually found in docor's offices and CNA's work in LTC or hospitals. Personally, I have always found Medical Assistant programs to be rip-offs's; vocational schools suck in these students and get them thousands of dollars into debt (my brother accrued $7000 worth of student loans to become a Medical Assistant), the programs last 8 months - 1 year and then when you finish school you wind up working for $8-10 an hour? IMHO it just isn't worth it.

i'm doing cna right now i'm going every saturday for the next 8 saturdays (8am-4pm.) then i believe we have to do 2 more days of clinicals.

i was going to go to school to be a medical assistant which takes 3 semesters at my school. then i found out that the lpn program takes 3 semesters as well i decided to do the lpn because more/better job opportunities being a lpn vs. medical assistant.

My bad...I should read posts slower. I thought you were asking for the difference between a CNA a NURSING ASSISTANT. I don't know exactly what a Medical Assistant does but I know they don't provide bedside care the way a CNA does. Medical Assistants are usually found in docor's offices and CNA's work in LTC or hospitals. Personally, I have always found Medical Assistant programs to be rip-offs's; vocational schools suck in these students and get them thousands of dollars into debt (my brother accrued $7000 worth of student loans to become a Medical Assistant), the programs last 8 months - 1 year and then when you finish school you wind up working for $8-10 an hour? IMHO it just isn't worth it.

Yes, v/t schools tout Medical Assistant to be the greatest career since sliced bread, and pretty much all they can do is work in doctor's offices with very restricted duties.

I agree with the last poster. I personally don't think it is worth taking the MA program when you can spend the same amount or a few months longer on becoming a LPN, and most schools that offer the MA program are private and charge an outrageous amount of money. Believe me I am almost finished wih my AS in Medical Insurance through a private univeristy and am regretting it. I will have so many loans to pay off. I am going to start CNA classes and than get into a LPN program even after all of that. Being a CNA is a great stepping stone for LPN programs!

Yes, v/t schools tout Medical Assistant to be the greatest career since sliced bread, and pretty much all they can do is work in doctor's offices with very restricted duties.

I can kind of understand why someone would want to work as an MA instead of as a nurse. Perhaps they have decided they don't want to have to provide beside care. Maybe they just prefer the doctor's office setting or they don't want a career that might require them to work nights and weekends the way a nurse has too. But think of what would happen if there were no MA's. Doctors offices would have to hire LPN's who they would have to pay a higher wage (in my area I have even seen want ad's for MA's offering $6.50 an hour). The same students studying to become MA's would simply become LPN's. It seems to me that whoever might be benefitting from the growth of MA's as a field, it certainly aren't the MA's themselves.

In total agreement with everyone else. I had a friend who went to school to be an MA and makes like $9/hr. So not worth it. I'm taking the course now to be a CNA to gain some experience before I start the accelerated nursing program next fall. The community college that I'm attending has night classes so that I'm able to work pretty much full time (if my boss weren't a jerk that kept cutting my hours just to save money - small businesses are just LOVELY to work for). I attend three nights a week 5:10-9pm, but lab nights are only until 8 and clinicals will be 5:00-10:00. The class is a full semester, but only because I'm also getting acute care training. The CNA (LTC) portion is done by, I believe, mid-October, and the remainder of the semester, until the first week of December, is acute care. There are a lot of nursinga ssistants in my area, so the combination class was a much better option to getting hired afterwards.